Meanwhile, for better or worse, he’s become a kind of inescapable pop-culture staple. He’s a golden boy (whose label, Columbia, had the good sense to sign him to a 10-year Fort Knox-size deal in 2008). In fact, commercially, Mayer has never come close to failing. And I think you gain more than you lose by saying that”), it debuted at Number One. Since 2001, he’s released four studio albums, starting with Room for Squares, that have all been big successes, with hit songs like “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” “Daughters” and “Waiting on the World to Change.” And while his newest record, Battle Studies, isn’t up to his previous one, Continuum (an assessment even Mayer agrees with: “I know that I’m supposed to say that my newest is the best one. But his guitar chops, especially in the bluesy area, are unquestionably great, and he can count Eric Clapton among his admirers. Sure, lots of people don’t like him and his music, too poppy, too sensitive, his head is too big, he uses the word “meta” too often. So maybe that really is his situation, despite who he is. “No, man, and after that happens eight, nine times, I’d rather just go home and RedTube, good night. Resplendent in a black-leather slant-zip jacket, obscure Japanese kicks and insanely expensive vintage Rolex, he’s charging forward in his typical hyperbolic Mayerian way, saying stuff like “Blowing me off is the new sucking me off!” and “This is the death of rock & roll!” Suggest that maybe he’s exaggerating, and he takes deep umbrage, jackknifing his long body forward. Some time after the latest awful episode, he’s downing a few Old-Fashioneds at a Los Angeles beautiful-people watering hole. “Hey,” she says, “before I go, can I have your autograph?”

She turns to him, this girl he had longed for, however briefly, felt a connection with, felt hope. Mayer says this has happened to him more than once, so he knows what she’s thinking: “Wait till I tell my friends I turned down John Mayer!” And it doesn’t stop there. But then suddenly the girl’s up on her feet and walking out.

But you know what he says is even worse? He sees a girl, any girl, and makes his move. Your Body Is a Wonderland can cut in and go first. It doesn’t exactly thrill him, either, when he’s got to take a leak, and the line is long, and now the big man guarding the bathroom is making some dude hop on both feet so that Mr. John Mayer goes out to a club, any club, he feels bad about it if some big host man makes someone get up from the banquette and take their Grey Goose elsewhere so the skinny rock star with the weirdly elevated hair can sit down.

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